Last year, the Federal Government estimated that about 200,000 barrels of oil were lost daily in Nigeria due to theft and vandalism of pipelines.

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has repeatedly warned that the national government is not aware of how much oil is produced by the country's petroleum industry, and it called for meters to be installed on all production well heads.

NUPRC Chief Executive, Gbenga Komolafe said that 40 percent of the volume recorded as losses was due to poor measurement.

Engr. Komolafe, who gave the speech in Lagos at the Petroleum Club’s quarterly dinner party, said this revelation came after a forensic audit conducted by the Commission that covered January 2020 through November 2022's crude theft numbers.

The audit was undertaken to determine with accuracy the amount of crude oil stolen during a certain period.

He said "the Commission is committed to dealing with the issue of metering errors by ensuring that Original Equipment Manufacturers licensed directly as agents of the Commission will be responsible for deployment and maintenance of metering facilities across the Nigeria’s oil and gas facilities, for transparency in hydrocarbon accounting”. 

He noted that the “reform measure adopted by the Commission offers a paradigm shift from the trajectory in Nigeria’s hydrocarbon measurement since oil was discovered in Nigeria in Oloibiri in 1956; and is aimed at ensuring that no one becomes a judge in his own case.

“Admittedly, one major area of value erosion in the industry is the menace of crude oil theft. Our records indicate that the menace of oil theft has negatively impacted the oil and gas sector for about two decades with attendant huge financial losses to our nation.

“The Commission, in collaboration with the various arms of the Security forces, the NNPC Limited and the host communities, have been able to suppress the ugly trend of hydrocarbon value decimation. Now, our nation has continued to record good dividends of these collaborative efforts as production figures are progressively increasing”.

He stressed that “the January 2023 volume is approximately 1.5 million barrels per day of oil and condensates. It is expected that this number will continue to increase as further measures are introduced and sustained to remove all illegal connections that aid crude oil theft”.